Often described as Dylanesque, the raspy-voiced Butch Hancock is at heart a West Texas mystic with an equal affinity for romantic border balladry and Zen paradox. Though his songs have frequently been recorded by Lubbock, Texas, homeboys Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore and occasionally by the likes of Emmylou Harris and Jerry Jeff Walker, Hancock's own recordings have generally been haphazardly distributed live cassettes.

After a couple of CD compilations from those self-issued tapes on Sugar Hill, this studio debut for the label features kindred-spirited backing by a band borrowed from Lucinda Williams – producer-guitarist Gurf Morlix, drummer Donald Lindley and bassist Dr. John Ciambotti – that adds flesh and muscle to Hancock's bare-bones melodies while giving the material plenty of room to breathe. The results rock harder than folk music, though no category has been able to contain Hancock's multilayered synthesis of sound and sense.

Within the plain-spoken poetry of recently written standouts, such as "Eileen," "Pumpkineater" and "Welcome to the Real World, Kid," it can be difficult to tell where the natural order ends and the supernatural begins as Hancock puts his irrepressible verbal playfulness to serious purpose. While the album-closing title cut has all the tender wistfulness of a love song, it can be heard on a deeper level as a miniatute treatise on time – what transpires, what endures, what to make of it all. In addition the album features a couple of Hancock chestnuts, with a haunting spoken-word recitation of "Boxcars" among the highlights – though the sprightly rendition of "If You Were a Bluebird" might smack of redundancy to those listeners who are already familiar with the singer's most oftrecorded tune.

The more feverishly uptempo fare finds the band bolstered by the dual guitars of Charlie Sexton and Jesse Taylor on one song that ranks with the album's best ("Junkyard in the Sun") and another that is its breeziest throwaway ("Baby Be Mine"). Elsewhere the fiddle of Gene Elders, accordion of Ponty Bone and organ of Riley Osbourn add Texas texture that reinforces the organic expressiveness of the material. Within Hancock's songwriting, the love of language is never an end in itself but a reflection of a love of life in all its dimensions. Invariably there is more to this music than initially meets the ear. (RS 706)

DON MCLEESE